Sense of Touch
by WhColsto
Summary: He didn't understand. The war was over, the casualties counted. This couldn't have happened, this pointless and meaningless slaughter. RWHG. DH spoilers but AU.


Sense of Touch

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters- J.K. Rowling nd the wonderful people at Scholastic and Bloomsbury hold the sole rights to this world.

Cold.

His hands, his face, his body was completely freezing cold as he lay back on the hard forest floor, his head spinning, his bones aching and heart thudding rapidly in his chest. His eyes took in the stillness of the night, the moon hanging serenely overhead, the stars spattering the night sky. He could see his own breath as it puffed from blue tinted lips, hear his ragged breathing as he struggled to return his pulse down to its normal rate.

With a groan, he sat up, bringing a sore hand to his head. Bringing the other to the other side of his head, he cradled it. He sat there a few minutes, his long legs splayed out before him, his throbbing head clutched in freezing hands. As he closed his eyes, he tried to make sense of the images that were currently bombarding his vision. Memories, he realized, memories of the night, images of the events that proceeded his venture into the world of unconsciousness. He knew a few things for certain and he ticked them off mentally.

One: This was the night of the great battle, the ultimate battle of good and evil that had been brewing for decades and had consumed his life for seven years. This was the night of the war between his best friend and the most evil wizard in Magical history.

Two: The dust had settled and good had triumphed over evil. He knew that, felt it, could taste it in the night air. He had seen Voldemort defeated by his own eyes, by his own friend, heard his pathetic and final scream, felt the energy and power as it exploded out of him, never to be felt or held over anyone ever again.

Three: Harry had been spared, at first feared dead, and then, miraculously, had returned to defeat the man whose presence had loomed over him since that fateful night sixteen years prior, whose evil and very murderous rage had imprinted itself on his flesh for eternity. Upon Voldemort's defeat, a great, triumphant outpouring of voices had started and had filled the Great Hall, echoing loudly against its walls.

His thought process stopped there. The Great Hall...he had been in the Great Hall, had been celebrating in the Great Hall...and now, he was in the Forbidden Forest, hurt, tired and cold. It didn't make any sense...

His mind ticked over the events proceeding his awakening. Harry, killing the Dark Lord. His friends and family, celebrating and cheering with reverent glee. Herminone, wrapping her arms around his neck, tears falling from her face as she sobbed in simultaneous happiness and anguish...

The thought struck him like a blow to his stomach.

Herminone...he had been with Herminone, that was the last thing he remembered before waking on the forest floor...

Suddenly, with renewed strength and energy, he got to his feet, shouting her name.

As soon as he spoke, he winced at the sound of his voice. It was hoarse, hoarse from lack of water, over exertion and grief, and suddenly, fear. He had lost so much in this war: family, friends...he couldn't afford to lose one of the best things he had going for him, something so new and something he had so desperately wanted for years.

He continued to shout, walking quickly on uneasy feet. Staggering, he found himself at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, his eyes squinting as he tried to make out the images in front of him, only a few yards away.  
He recognized the figures immediately, felt something akin to joy burst within him and he picked up pace, nearly running toward them.

"Mum!" He yelled, moments before reaching her. When he did, he did something he hadn't done since he was a little boy: wrapped his arms around her waist and before he could stop himself, felt hot salty tears cascading down his cheeks into the softness of her sweater. He wept like a little boy in relief and clung to her as though his life depended on it. She met his need with equal fervor, heaving a great sigh of relief as tears washed over her face as well.

"God, Ron! Oh, my God, my boy...we couldn't find you, we thought...we thought,"

Her body sounded with a great sob, her head coming down to rest upon his own.

After a few moments, her thoughts coming back to the entire situation, she lifted her head and shouted to someone a few feet ahead of them.

"Arthur, Arthur! It's Ron, we've found Ron!" Ron heard muffled footsteps and felt more arms embracing him, though he did little to move. He was safe for a few moments, away from the pain, the uncertainty, the loss, the mystery...The mystery...

The thought popped out of him and he then brought his head out of his mothers sweater, his voice feeble and tear laden as he spoke.

"Mum, Mum. I woke up and I didn't...I don't remember...I couldn't find...Where's Hermione? She was with me and then...I don't remember, Mum. Please..."

His voice broke as he tried to explain himself.

His eyes broke from his mother's face and he was met with his father's, as well as his sister's. He studied their faces, spent long moments examining each little detail.

Worry lines marred their ever joyful expressions, and tear tracks. Tear tracks, fresh tear tracks. Ginny's lip quivered even now as he looked at them all. He understood- his own brother had just been killed, his father and mother's close friends defeated, silenced forever in a brutal and terrible war. But there was something else, fresh and tragic. Something else so tangible in the air that reeked of death and tragedy.

Ron expanded his sight to the perimeter around him, his mind still blank but alarmed and alert. Yards away, he say a young man on his knees, his shoulders heaving with sobs. A young man with tattered robes, glasses and raven hair. Beside him, a man towered, his shoulders heaving even worse with unrepressed sobs and wails...

'Harry. Hagrid.' His brain told him, taking in the sight. The were both kneeling in front of something, something that had to be terrible from the way that they were behaving. There were more beside the two, however. McGonagall, he realized, her expression tired and mournful, and students. Students that he recognized. Luna, Neville, Seamus, all wearing the same expressions of utter sadness and defeat.

But...they had won! Good had won and evil was vanquished forever. So, why was everyone so upset, so caught up in grief? Wasn't it the time for celebration? He turned from the group of mourners and closed his eyes. What he wouldn't give to go back to the Burrow and sweep Hermione up in his arms, bury his head in her shoulder and sleep for weeks...And suddenly, his thoughts were back on track, his brain screaming. He quickly turned back to the group, searching for her face.

He started to move toward the circle of his friends, but felt a hand on his shoulder.  
"Ron," his father said in a warning tone, "Don't, son. You stay here. We need to talk to you."

Ron stood still, staring at the group in front of him. He talked over his shoulder to his father.

"But, Dad...why are they so sad? We've won, haven't we? But...Why...Dad," his voice fell to a whisper as Neville moved. A form revealed itself in the gap Neville had left in the circle and Ron was met with a familiar sight. Shoes. Black leather flats. He racked his brain as he tried to place them, thought back to the days before. He knew the person that those shoes belonged...

He tried to banish the seemingly silly thought. Flats, he was getting worked up over a pair of bloody girl's shoes?

He let a sort of strangled laugh, his mouth twisting into a grin.

"What are they doing, Dad? What...? I don't understand...who are they...what are they looking at, Dad?"

His question was met with silence and he had to turn back to alleviate some of the stress he was feeling. Trepidation, however, began to sink into his stomach at the look he found in his father's eyes. His brow wrinkled in confusion and wanting, he asked again in a low, even tone.

"Dad, have you seen Hermione?"

Arthur looked down at the ground, biting his lip, seemingly to quell the sob that had entered his throat. He choked on it, cleared his throat.

"Ron," he said, putting his hands on his son's shoulders, "Where did you go after Harry defeated Him? What happened?"

Ron's brow wrinkled in confusion even more, turning slightly to once again observe the mourners. His father didn't let him, however, forcing him back to look into his eyes.

"I don't know...I don't know. One minute, Hermione and I were...we were...celebrating, and the next...I woke up. In the forest in pain. Dad...where is she? Oh, God, is she hurt? Did something happen...I don't think..."

Behind him, he heard his sister begin to weep quietly.

Arthur's eyes watered slowly, his shoulders sagging defeatedly.

"We don't know what happened, Ron. We don't know why you woke up in the forest when we found her in the clearing. We don't know how he got a hold of her...Did you touch anything that could have been a port key...?"

His chest gave a great start when he heard the words. Got a hold of her, found her...?

Before he knew what he was doing, he had wrenched himself clear of his father's grip and was starting toward his friends and teachers, a terrible feeling of dread low in his belly. What...the shoes, the crying, the words his father had spoken...

As he neared the group, he heard his sister cry harder, his mother choke out his name and protest his nearness to the group.\

As he got closer, he began to the see the beginnings of a person, splayed out, their body listless. The feet, encased in black leather ballerina flats, the thin legs dressed in jeans that were tattered beyond repair...

As he inched further, he ceased breathing, his heart beating so hard he could feel it in his throat. He plowed through the group mindlessly, his body acting of its own accord. He knocked Seamus aside, and Luna scooted away before he could do the same to her.

Her body lay sprawled out under a blanket, her dirty arms and hands completely outstretched, her eyes open and glassy, her mouth opened in a silent scream.

Upon his arrival, the group looked to him in surprise and fear...in pity. Still standing, he felt Harry's hand on his leg and looked down at his best friend. His face was covered in grime, his head caked in blood. He had tears running down his face in a seemingly endless flow.

"Ron," he said, his voice weak and riddled with grief, "Oh, God, she.. Ron..."

Wordlessly, Ron dropped to his hands and knees feet away from the body.

Cold.

His hands, his face, his body was completely freezing cold as he kneeled on his hands and knees before her. He crawled toward her and stopped centimeters from her, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to reach out. If he felt her, if he did anything, it would make this real and make the grief pour over him in a never ending torrent.

If he...

His eyes moved to her lips, tinted blue like his own, and thought of only hours earlier. He had felt hers upon his own, claming and marking him as her own. Forever.

That was what he had felt when they had embraced. This was what he was going to do, what he was going to want forever...Her.  
He wanted her, he needed her...and she...She...

His hand betrayed what his head was telling him to do. He reached out with a trembling hand, enclosing her hand with his.

Warm.

Her hands were still warm. His hands moved.

Her face, her body, it was warm as she was lying on the cold floor of the clearing.

His mind tried to rationalize everything.

How could he be alive and freezing and how could she be warm but...It didn't make sense...none of this made any fucking sense whatsoever and the confusion and anger and grief began to make itself known inside of him.

Silence surrounded him as he finally gathered her in his arms, cradled her.

Hot. Scalding hot.

The tears moved down his face and burned his chapped lips and his body began to shake with the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.

'No. No. No.'

The mantra played over and over again in his head.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to love her for the rest of his life and she was supposed to call him an idiot when he screwed up, but love him back all the same. They were supposed to get married and have children- a big brood of children- and grow old and gray together.

This wasn't how it was all supposed to happen...

"NO!"

The word tore out of him, somewhere from deep inside. It was a guttural scream and the people around him winced and broke at the sound.  
⌠

"Goddammit, NO! NO! This isn't...this wasn't..."

He brought her up to cradle to his chest and he buried his hand in her hair, his head in the crook of her neck.

His free hand pounded the earth in frustration and utter despair.

"Goddamit, Hermione! It wasn't supposed.. I love.. We just figured out that we loved each other and...you...You!"

His shoulders sagged as he gave into his emotions fully and sobbed brokenly in the dirty hair of the girl in his arms.

Behind him, Mrs. Weasley clung to her husband and daughter, yearning to touch her son, to try and bring him some kind of comfort, but knowing still that she could do nothing. He needed to do this, needed to deal and grieve in his own way.

But that didn't make it any easier to deal with. His whole body heaved and groaned, every inch of him. His friends around him stared, unable to look away, transfixed, when they so desperately wanted to turn away.

After a few moments, however, somehow Harry broke his gaze and looked to the forest, to a particular tree just to the right of the clearing.

There, Fenir Greyback lay, crumpled and broken, a limb jutting through his chest. He shuttered when his eyes made their way up to his mouth, Hermione's blood still wet upon his jaw.

He still didn't know how Ron and Hermione had made their way out to the forest exactly, but he knew that it was some sort of underhanded plan on Greyback's behalf.

Ever since the Manor, Greyback hadn't been able to get Hermione out of his head...And now...now...she had paid with her life because of a beast's lust.

He looked at his best friend, cradling the broken body of the girl he loved and felt his stomach roll in disgust and grief and fear and incredible rage.

The war, the battle had been over! Everything had been settled, the casualties known and lost. But this... this was unbearable. Harry had always thought that after Voldemort had been defeated, the world would resume the peace that it had once known, that the pointless death and meaningless sacrifice would disappear. But this act of complete, meaningless slaughter of one of his dearest friends left him confused and broken- on the verge of hopelessness and defet.

Harry's sobbing resumed. And just like that, the stupor was broken as everyone formed around Ron and started mourning once again. Sobs mingled and they began to cry, it seemed, as one entity, mourning the loss of a girl they had all come to admire and love.

Numb.

His hands, his face, his body was completely numb- he felt nothing except incredible sadness and pain. He felt removed from his body, felt as if the girl in his arms was weightless and airy, a spirit more and a human less. He hated the feeling- hated how she seemed to be fading into nothingness when all he was was wrapped up in the realness of her. He relied solely on her, lived completely for her.

But where did that leave him if she no longer lived at all?

His sobbing intensified.

The tears continued to streak upon his face and his body finally gave out. He fell back onto the cold floor of the clearing once again and pulled her with him, laying her on his chest.

Cold.

His hands, his face, his body was completely freezing cold as he lay back on the hard forest floor, his head spinning, his bones aching and heart thudding rapidly in his chest. His eyes took in the stillness of the night, the moon hanging serenely overhead, the stars spattering the night sky. He could see his own breath as it puffed from blue tinted lips, hear his ragged breathing as he struggled to return his pulse down to its normal rate.

The End

A/N: And it's done. I would greatly appreciate feedback. I've had this idea floating in my head for a bit...My two favorite characters are Ron and Hermione and while I LOVE how they ended up, I was also really fascinated by the prospect of the death of one of them, the effect that it would have on them, etc. I hope I didn't scar anyone too badly. Thank you for reading!


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